


Then must we sleep one ever-during night

by azn-jack-fiend (ajf)



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Vengeance, Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: F/M, Medical Trauma, Oral Sex, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:44:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajf/pseuds/azn-jack-fiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crixus and Naevia make love for the first time after being reunited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then must we sleep one ever-during night

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: contains references to past rape trauma in strong language.

_Heav’n’s great lamps do dive_  
 _Into their west, and straight again revive,_  
 _But soon as once set is our little light,_  
 _Then must we sleep one ever-during night._  
\- from [Catullus 5](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_5) 

 

“Why do you leave?” asked Crixus.

Naevia had no answer. Or none that she could give, at least. Every night, whether on bare stony ground or in softest luxury of a seized villa, he’d held her in his powerful arms, encircled her in his protection and warmth, rocked her to sleep. Was she not the most fortunate of women, to hold the love of the Undefeated?

She did not leave the tent, but neither did she turn to face him.

“Naevia. I would have you speak of your troubles.”

“Listen,” she said to him.

“I do not hear you speak.”

“No. _Listen_.” She gestured to her right.

There were faint rhythmic grunts. A voice, whining. _Please. Gods. More._

“They disturb your sleep?” A rustling noise as his massive body uncoiled from their sleeping skins. “Well, then, I will see that—”

She turned on him then, as savage and quick as a sword strike. “No. Leave them be, my love. There are others, too. They... seize their pleasures as they can.” His dark eyes glimmered, reflecting the flickering light of the oil lamp. He astounded her, in all his brutal grace and merciless _patience_. She took a deep breath and continued. “Yet _I_ cannot pleasure _you_.”

“You please me in my arms. I have all I desire.”

“You are a man. You need what men need. If you go to a woman in the camps quietly, I would not hold it a slight.”

“ _Naevia_.” Gods, the way he said her name, so full of hunger and anger and love.  

She fell to her knees, still staring deep into his burning, flickering eyes. “My cunt is a scarred wreck of a thing.”

“We are all scarred.”

“No. No, no, no...” The tears vanquished her defenses, shamed her eyes, coursed down her cheeks, were wiped away by Crixus, who bore her down and held her. Held her and crooned to her in the strange, wild language of the Gauls.

Eventually, the tears passed. She lay there in miserable bliss, in an agony of frustrated desire, his vital form pressing her down. Gods, those stolen joinings in the ludus. There had been a little pain at first, but he was a slow and mindful lover, and soon she had taken his whole length inside her, proud and quivering with pleasure.

She moved her hand carefully downwards across rock-hard muscle. _Oh_. Soft, but he quickened in her palm.

“Naevia.”

“I remember—I would feel you again.”

“As you wish.” He closed his hand around hers. There was a rightness to it, as when he had first instructed her in the art of the sword. _Grip the hilt, like so_.

“Let me please you,” she whispered. His cock slid between her eager fingers in response to the shifting of his position. He was hot, burning hot and silky smooth.

“If such is your desire—”

“It is.” She pressed her face into his chest, inhaled Crixus’s heady scent—fresh sweat, well-worn leather and finely ground steel from the weapons he bore—and fell into a languor sweeter than she’d ever known from wine or drug. She kissed and licked the salt from his skin as she writhed downwards, and it only left her more hungry. She frightened herself.

She _needed_.  

“Naevia. Naevia.”

She kissed the head of his rampant shaft.

“ _Fuck the gods_ —”

Salt and musk, strong and subtle—the taste drew her forward. She set her tongue against his flesh, flicking, probing, worshipping. He pulled her hand up and down his shaft as she sucked his cock, and made a harsh sound as if gravely wounded. _I am doing this to him. I alone._ Pride swelled in her heart, and low in her stomach, a warmth that was almost, _almost_ pleasure.

She took in his cock all the way to the back of her throat and wanted... Gods, she wanted _everything_.

“Naevia!”

He pulsed and twitched in her mouth, marvellously _alive_ —spent his thick warm seed in her, and she swallowed it gratefully. _Oh, my love_. Hot tears fell from her eyes.

He wiped them away with the pad of his thumb. “I would have none but you,” he groaned. “None. Ever.”

She rested his head against the pillar of his thigh, and he stroked her hair for a long time, with tender caresses that reminded her of another life, beyond blood and steel.

Such was her world, now. And as long as she fought with Crixus, she had no fear of it.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was soft—soft in his own relentless, unyielding manner, like the sound of water wearing down river stones. “Would you open yourself to me, Naevia?”

“Your meaning is... unclear,” she murmured, although a slow dread began to crawl up her spine.

“Let me touch your womanhood. Let me see the scars.”

The word _no_ almost left her lips. _No, there was too much pain. No, I will never be a whole woman, I am not fit for you, no, no, no._

Then she remembered how easy it was to lay aside her fear in battle. 

“Yes,” she said simply, and shut her eyes tight.

He eased her onto her back over their sleeping skins. Kissed her forehead, her shivering breasts, her clenched stomach.

_I am not afraid_ , she told herself, until she halfway believed it.

He parted her legs gently, and rested his cheek against her inner thigh. As he spoke, his warm breath soaked into her skin. “I loathe to speak her name,” he whispered, “But the woman who once owned us taught me many ways to give pleasure.”

Her body clenched. Hate boiled through her. Gods, if she could kill Lucretia a thousand times over, drag her up from the grave and—

_No_. Let her rot where she lay.

Naevia had her man.

She let her muscles relax one by one. Crixus, who must have sensed her acquiescence, parted her legs wider with gentle force. His fingers swept higher, higher. She gritted her teeth and tried to empty her mind, tried not to remember the pain as the blood ran down her legs, as they stood around her laughing and waiting their filthy turns.

He touched her.

There was no pain.

Her chest shook as she let herself breathe again, sounding ragged and desperate to her own ears. Desperate for her lover not to pity her.

“There are scars,” he said. “They are of no account to me, unless they pain you.” His finger massaged into her inner lips with the lightest of touches.

“Oh—”

The sensation travelled deep into her flesh, not like a sword strike, but like the planting of a seed and its slow unfurling. Neither pain nor pleasure. It was new.

It was _good_.

He kissed her next, at the pearl of her womanhood, and licked her until she moaned, as the feeling rose and rose until it strained at the barrier into real, true pleasure.

_Break me,_ she begged silently. _Break me as I broke you._

She arched her yearning cunt against his lips. His stiffened tongue stroked her higher and higher. She felt him in her womb, in her heart, in her soul. The god of love kneeled between her legs.

If she had the breath, she would scream his name.

The world burned away into white flame.  

When at last the raging pleasure released its grip on her, leaving her rocking in Crixus’ arms, she laughed in pure relief and joy.

“I made you fucking wet,” he growled with obvious satisfaction.

“Yes.” She smiled to herself and rested the side of her head against the crook of his arm. “Gratitude.”

“Speak no more of other women, and I’ll do the same tomorrow night.”

“I would have more of you.” Perhaps it could be done. Slowly, patiently. But perhaps... yes.

“Now rest.”

_The sun will rise, and I will stand by his side with steel in my hand. Gods, grant me this much_.

So little to pray for, yet it was truly all she wanted.

She drifted asleep to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

 


End file.
